Is the very concept of “Canadian humor” an oxymoron? As they say in Canada: possibly, or possibly not.

Canada’s history lacks the violent frontier mythology that continues to fuel the folk hoax of rugged individualism so central to the American identity. Rather, Canadian society was carefully devised to run on the oiled ball bearings of amity and cooperation, ensuring a near-Scandinavian calm, as in: an aversion to firing semi-automatic Russian assault weapons into schoolrooms; the casual embrace of free health insurance even for deadbeats; debate over same-sex marriage that’s about as heated as that over licensing dogs; open arms to immigrants, swarthy and otherwise; volunteering for U.N. peacekeeping duties, no questions asked; and a national disinclination to jaywalk, even at three A.M. on an empty street, because, heck, they told us not to.

Thus, a strong case can be made that life in unrestive, uncomplicated, unconfrontational Canada is altogether too relentlessly nice for humor to flourish. Lack of societal friction starves the mischief instinct. See also: belgian stand-up comedy festival canceled again … new zealand museum of comedy files for bankruptcy … finland-wide clown search proves futile.

“Canadian humor”—does it even exist? Theories abound and conflict and contradict themselves:

Theory 1: There are actually funny Canadians alive today, but all nine of them moved to the U.S.A., and once they got here they renounced their Canadian cultural heritage, the way Mick Jagger renounced his English accent. Mike Myers never makes Mountie jokes. Jim Carrey declines to send up the toonie, Canada’s hilarious two-dollar coin. You have to scour Wikipedia to confirm the Canadianness of Mort Sahl, David Steinberg, Michael J. Fox, Catherine O’Hara, Seth Rogen, the late John Candy and Phil Hartman, and that guy from that sitcom, you know the one. America absorbed Canadian comedians, or, Canadians would say, Canadian comedians absorbed America.* Lorne Michaels, the Darth Vader of American comedy, harvests all the comedic talent in his native land as ruthlessly as Major League Baseball loots the Dominican Republic of shortstops.

Theory 2: A distinctive Canadian humor style never had a chance. The British and the Americans, with their overwhelming cultural power, exhausted all the possibilities of English-language humor long before the messy agglomeration of territories and provinces was confederated into a sovereign entity called Canada, just after the U.S. Civil War.** This left Canadian wits bereft of original material and forced them back on the only potential for risibility left: the condition of being Canadian. Which, given the national psyche, inevitably curdled into a pathetically self-deprecating brand of humor, typified by the following:

Q: How do you get 26 Canadians out of a swimming pool?

A: Yell, “Everybody out of the pool!”

Theory 3: Canadians are, by history and temperament, the opposite of aggressive, and so, unsurprisingly, their humor is defensive; they beat up on themselves before anybody else—i.e., Americans—can do it.***

Theory 4: Canadians have inhaled such deep drafts of Britishness (the Union Jack disappeared from their flag only in 1965) that what there is of a Canadian humor style hews largely to those twin English enthusiasms, parody and satire.

It has been sneered that the American idea of satire is a pie in the face; Canadian tastes have always been subtler, as befits a nation that tuned in weekly for decades to smart British comedy shows via the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a kind of junior BBC in the best sense. Meanwhile, Americans were doubling up over Milton Berle and Red Skelton and that ilk.

Satire also suits the shy Canadian temperament: you can savage your victim while masked in somebody else’s identity. Anything to avoid drawing attention to yourself, which is against Canadian societal law.

I give you Stephen Leacock (1869–1944), the master satirist, English-born, Canadian-raised, who every Canadian schoolchild knows is a humor immortal. And you say thanks and give him right back, because you’ve never heard of him, or his classic works, such as the collections Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town and Moonbeams from the Larger Lunacy, and the story “Gertrude the Governess: or, Simple Seventeen,” wherein one character mounts his steed and goes galloping “madly off in all directions.” The Canadian Dilemma, in a nutshell.

Theory 5: The world may not be watching, but Canadians can make other Canadians laugh. It makes sad sense that while Canadian humor entertains the native population—notably with domestic TV comedy series such as This Hour Has 22 Minutes and Royal Canadian Air Farce—it will never flourish outside the country, because nobody outside of Canada feels any urgent need to read or hear about, or even be aware of, Canada.

This state of affairs was brought home to me a few years ago when a memoir I’d written about growing up Canadian, Thin Ice, was published here in America. The hardcover subtitle was “Coming of Age in Canada,” but when the paperback version later appeared, the U.S. publisher had changed it to “Saved by the American Dream,” in hopes (futile, as it turned out) of slowing its instant sales decline.

Theory 6: The very word “Canada” may seem to incarnate the Webster’s definition of “bland,” but within Canadian humor lurks a nasty streak, as in the merciless ridicule of French-Canadians by the (anti-Papist, anti-Quebec, Francophobic) Anglophone majority. Newfoundlanders, or Newfies, those hopelessly fogbound, flannel-clad fisherfolk, are mocked as being so clueless—even by Canadian standards—that picking on them makes the rest of the country feel like 34 million or so Noël Cowards.

Theory 7: It’s axiomatic that humor cannot thrive where there is no passion, and Canadians are famed for repressing their stronger feelings under a heavy blanket of earnest phlegmatism, tinged with an embedded Scotch-Calvinist suspicion that high spirits, and especially fun, are the Devil’s work.

In fact, Canadian passions can be and are constantly stirred to the brink of physical violence if the discussion involves:

Hockey.

The condescending stupidity about all things Canadian that is an American birthright.

The American compulsion for insufferable, nonstop, blowhard jingoism.

The even more insufferable phrase “Only in America,” so favored in July Fourth U.S. newspaper editorials—as if free, democratic, rich, progressive, tolerant Canada didn’t offer its citizens at least as much opportunity for unbounded success and happiness as its swaggering neighbor.

Canadian beer (nectar) versus American beer (horse piss).

Tim Hortons doughnuts.

Theory 8: It is impossible to fully express Canadian resentment of America’s cultural dominance, and the sense of impotence and helplessness involved has been oppressing Canadians since that fleeting high-water mark of self-regard in 1814 when British troops burned down the White House as revenge for the U.S.’s having torched the Canadian Parliament a year earlier. Humor—subversive, ironic, usually dark—is one of the very few weapons available to the oppressed. Which is why the Jews, the Irish, the Russians, and the Canadians are so funny. Being Canadian, however, the Canadians keep it to themselves.

*The historic Canadian talent diaspora is actually pretty funny in itself, e.g., the guy who wrote the music for the Canadian national anthem and then moved Stateside.

**The Dominion of Canada was the original name, about as mild a term for a nation as there is, and consciously chosen instead of the more assertive Republic of Canada or United States of Canada. And no fierce eagle or beast of the wild for a mascot—just that chubby, industrious forest rodent, the un-war-like beaver.

***Not aggressive? I’ll have you know that the Canadian government secretly formulated “Defence Scheme Number 1,” an invasion of the United States, in the early 1920s. From James Madison forward, American politicians had so regularly blustered about making a grab for Canadian territory that preparing a pre-emptive counterstrike, should an American invasion ever be actually imminent, seemed only prudent. PS: The movie rights are mine.